


love's just a feeling

by annadavidson



Series: let us duel the stars (a mass effect dual au) [14]
Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, fictober18, post-ME3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-03
Packaged: 2019-07-24 13:27:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16176008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annadavidson/pseuds/annadavidson
Summary: He honestly didn’t know what he would do without the man he loved.Prompt: "Can you feel this?"





	love's just a feeling

He hated this. Despite all the injuries he’d gotten in the past, he’d never had to undergo physical therapy before. Medigel had always been enough. But that last time had been different. He didn’t regret his actions. He and Aaliyah had done what they’d thought was best to defeat the Reapers. Like usual, they’d been on the same page. They’d been willing to sacrifice themselves to save the galaxies. But right before the explosion had happened, he’d realized they didn’t  _need_  to die. He’d created a barrier with his biotics and pushed it farther than he’d done before to encompass both him and Aaliyah.

It had been a struggle to maintain it as the explosion occurred and the barrier had eventually broken, but it seemed to have been the key to keeping the two of them alive. Except it had also fried his implant and his biotics had basically short-circuited his nerves and brain.

The doctors had insisted that there was therapy and technology that could heal the brain and nerve damage, but it would all take  _time._  Lately he wasn’t much of a patient man. But he wasn’t alone in this. Steve was there every step of the way, helping him recover, work on physical therapy - helping him try to gain back his life.

The hardest part was adjusting to not having biotics despite also losing his left leg from his knee and below. He’d asked for a new implant but the doctors had been afraid it would have a negative effect on his recovery. He’d only stopped asking at the insist of both Steve and Chakwas. He’d seen Aaliyah a couple of times but they had been mostly recovering on their own, away from each other. Duncan admittedly felt guilty that he hadn’t been able to do more to protect her.

“Dunc?” Steve’s voice hesitantly pulled him back from reality. He was looking at him with thinly veiled worry. He was the only one that Duncan wasn’t tired of getting that look from.

There was a rubber ball in his hand. He was supposed to throw it and Duncan was supposed to catch it - except catching wasn’t easy when you occasionally lost feeling in your hand and even your whole arm or when you were suddenly struck with sharp pain.

Duncan’s hands were tingling right now with what felt like constant and persistent bee stings. He didn’t want to try to catch some stupid ball when simply moving his hands hurt. He still had to despite the pain, but he didn’t want to.

Steve scooted his seat closer in front of Duncan, limiting the space between them. He was searching his eyes for  _something,_  but Duncan wasn’t sure what. Steve reached for his hands put he pulled them away. He could see the hurt flash in Steve’s eyes before his fiance tried to mask it.

“They hurt,” he said shortly, “I just feel…” He trailed off as the word escaped him. He knew it, his brain just refused to remember it. “I just feel…?”

“Pain?” Steve supplied.

Duncan sighed and closed his eyes.  _“Pain.”_

Steve set the ball down and when he reached forward, this time he gently cupped Duncan’s face.

“Can you feel  _this?”_  he asked, leaning forward and crossing the space between them as he pressed his lips to Duncan’s.

Duncan definitely felt  _that._  His eyes remained closed but he leaned into the kiss. He focused on the kiss, trying to forget about the pain in his hands. One of Steve’s hands slid down and came to rest on Duncan’s right thigh. Eventually Duncan moved his own hands, his arms coming to rest around Steve’s neck. When their lips parted, all he could think about was wanting it to last longer. He wanted to feel Steve against him and forget all about his problems.

But Steve was far more than a simple distraction to him.

His eyes opened and his gaze easily found Steve’s, barely a few inches between their faces.

“I felt that,” he breathed out, a goofy grin on his face.

Steve returned his grin. “And the pain?”

Surprisingly he felt no pain at that moment. “Gone.”

“Good.”

“You make everything…” he hesitated, searching for the word. This time Steve pulled back, watching him, letting him remember it on his own. It took him a moment but it came to him.  _“Better._  You make everything  _better.”_

He honestly didn’t know what he would do without the man he loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Like/reblog on Tumblr [here](http://magicrobins.tumblr.com/post/178689444810/loves-just-a-feeling).


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